The Real Gladstone by J. Ewing (James Ewing) Ritchie

Author:J. Ewing (James Ewing) Ritchie [Ritchie, J. Ewing]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, New Age, History, Fiction & Literature
ISBN: 9781465645272
Google: VAsyAQAAIAAJ
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
Published: 2020-03-16T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII.

MR. GLADSTONE’S SPEECHES.

In 1892 appeared part of what was to be a ten-volume edition of Mr. Gladstone’s speeches, edited by Mr. William Hutton, librarian, National Liberal Club, and R. J. Cowen, of the Inner Temple, barrister-at-law. The work is a labour of love on the part of the two editors, and Mr. Gladstone himself contributes a modest preface. He has seen such passages as seemed to require revision, and he testifies to their correctness. In some instances the editors have made verbal amendments where it was apparent that the text was misreported. They have also added brief notes, just sufficient to recall the circumstances under which the speeches were delivered. It is in his perorations that Mr. Gladstone rises to his loftiest rhetoric, as is seen in the one delivered in his great Birmingham speech of 1885 on Ireland’s new weapons: ‘Ah, gentlemen, may I tell you with what weapons Ireland is fighting this battle? She is not fighting it with the weapons of menace, with a threat of separation, with Fenian outbreaks, with the extension of secret societies. Happily those ideas have passed away into a distance undefined. She is fighting the contest with the weapons of confidence and affection—of confidence in the powerful party by whose irrevocable decision she is supported, and of affection towards the people of England. May I tell you one incident, that will not occupy two minutes, in proof of what I say? In the county, I think, of Limerick, not very many days ago, an Englishman was addressing a crowd of Irish Nationalists on the subject of Home Rule. His carriage or his train, whichever it was, was just going to depart. Someone cried out, “God save Ireland!” and there was a loud burst of cheering. The train started, the cheering subsided. Another voice from the crowd was raised, and shouted, “And God save England!” and there were cheers louder still, such in the language of Shakespeare that

‘“Make the welkin ring again,

And fetch still echoes from the hollow earth.”

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